WASHINGTON — A House committee looking into a flawed gun-smuggling probe in Arizona announced Monday that it will consider holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress next week for failing to produce some documents the panel is seeking.
House panel schedules June 20 contempt
vote on AG Holder
WASHINGTON — A House committee looking into a flawed gun-smuggling probe in Arizona announced Monday that it will consider holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress next week for failing to produce some documents the panel is seeking.
The committee has scheduled a contempt vote for June 20.
To date, the Justice Department has produced 7,600 pages of material to the committee.
Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said Congress needs to examine records regarding the Justice Department’s conduct following public disclosures in early 2011 that hundreds of guns illicitly purchased at gun shops on the U.S. side of the border wound up in Mexico, many of them at crime scenes.
The Justice Department says many of the documents being sought deal with open criminal investigations and prosecutions — matters relating to sensitive law enforcement activities that cannot be disclosed.
Commerce secretary suffered seizure; police cite him in hit-and-runs
SAN GABRIEL, Calif. — A succession of small fender benders over the weekend raises questions about whether U.S. Commerce Secretary John Bryson has a medical or legal problem — or both.
The bizarre series of events happened Saturday afternoon when Bryson hit a car stopped for a train — twice — then rammed into another vehicle a few minutes later. He was found unconscious in his car, and government officials said Monday he had a seizure, which could play a role in whether he’s charged with felony hit-and-run.
It wasn’t clear whether the medical episode preceded or followed the collisions, but Bryson hasn’t suffered a seizure before, said a department official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the secretary’s medical history.
Bryson has a “limited recall of the events,” the official said.
The crashes drew attention because of health concerns involving a member of the U.S. Cabinet, as well as the challenge investigators face when trying to determine if someone should be held criminally responsible because of adverse health.
Colorado, New Mexico fires out of control
BELLVUE, Colo. — Massive wildfires in drought-parched Colorado and New Mexico tested the resources of state and federal crews Monday and underscored the need to replenish an aging U.S. aerial firefighting fleet needed to combat a year-round fire season.
Wyoming diverted personnel and aircraft from two fires there to help with a 60-square-mile wildfire in northern Colorado. Canada also loaned two aerial bombers to fight the Colorado blaze following the recent crash of a U.S. tanker in Utah. And an elite federal firefighting crew arrived to try to begin containing a fire that destroyed at least 118 structures.
All told, about 600 firefighters will be battling the fire some 15 miles west of Fort Collins by Tuesday, said incident commander Bill Hahnenberg. “We are a very high priority nationally. We can get all the resources we want and need,” he said.
The U.S. Forest Service said late Monday it would add more aircraft to its aerial firefighting fleet, contracting one air tanker from the state of Alaska and four from Canada.
Two more air tankers were being activated in California.
The announcement came after Colorado’s U.S. House congressional delegation demanded that the agency deploy more resources to the fire, which was zero percent contained and forced hundreds of people to abandon their homes. The Larimer County Sheriff’s Office said it confirmed one person died in the fire — but did not say whether the victim was a person previously reported missing.
By wire sources